Many people told me getting a green card was impossible. If I'd believed them, I'd be sitting around complaining that getting one is impossible. Instead, I applied for a green card and now have one. People keep telling me getting Chinese citizenship is impossible. I could believe them, give up, and complain about how getting citizenship is impossible. Instead, I'm going to apply and find out for myself how easy or hard it is.

As my green card anniversary approaches, I've kicked the hunt for citizenship info into high gear.

My lovely wife saw an article about a girl who's family moved overseas when she was a baby. While overseas, she ended up acquiring local citizenship. Sometime after turning 18, she decided she wanted to move back to China and get her Chinese citizenship. I was under the impression there would be a quick and easy path for someone in this situation. When she went to get the application form, they told her she'd have to get a green card first, but that she wasn't yet qualified to apply for one. If this is correct, she may have to wait until 5 years after she gets married to a guy in China. Evidently my impression of this being easier for those of Chinese ancestry or even those who gave up citizenship as infants may be mistaken. I do feel bad for her. On the other hand, it's interesting to see that the citizenship application rules don't put me at as much of a disadvantage as I thought they might.

Yesterday we went to visit some of my old friends at the foreigner containment bureau. There wasn't any line (the rain seemed to have convinced quite a few people to wait a day), so we went straight in. All 3 officers seemed very surprised I was back, since I didn't need a res permit anymore and didn't need to bug them about the status of my green card application.

When asked for the citizenship application form and instruction sheet, one indicated that no one had ever asked for this form before, so he didn't know if they had any. Another pointed him to what I guess is the "rarely needed forms" table in the back of the room (where green card application forms are kept) and this got us the newest application form. The next issue was the instruction sheet, since the form didn't include a full list of supporting documents. This turned into a document hunt (I couldn't see the screen, so don't know if he was searching local files or if he had to go digging around on the internet). It took a few minutes, but instructions were located and printed out.

In the meantime, I was chatting with the officer who had the best English. He wanted to know why I wanted citizenship. I explained that my wife and daughter are here in China, as are most of my friends. My plan is to stay here forever and become a happy and productive citizen. A green card is really great, but if policies change at some point, cards can be rescinded. Citizenship is forever.

Now comes the fun part. Even my wife had some issues figuring out exactly what some of the questions exactly wanted. so we'll have to research them all very carefully so I can prepare proper and complete answers to each. The good news is the documentation requirements appear to be much simpler than those needed to apply for a green card. My wife thinks this is because they've already checked out much of the critical information while processing my green card application.